me arts ed

Laurie E. Hicks will teach Topics in Art Education: Talent & Giftedness in Art-Spring 2010

On the UMaine campus next Spring Dr. Laurie Hicks will be teaching Topics in Art Education: Talent & Giftedness. The class will be held on Wednesday’s, 4:30-7:00PM. It will be a mixed undergraduate/graduate level course. Graduate students should enroll for AED 574.  They will need to contact CED once the registration process begins unless they are already enrolled in our graduate program.

This is a great opportunity since it has been several years since Laurie offered this class and this could be helpful to art educators involved in planning and implementing a G/T program in schools.

Inspiring video

PS22 is a school located on Staten Island. They performed a Tori Amos song that is on YouTube. PS22 videos have been viewed by 9,000,000 since August 30, 2009. Below you can view the chorus during their final rehearsal of “Pictures of You” by The Cure. Thank you to Barbara Greenstone, MLTI teacher, for sharing this link. She first heard about PS22 on National Public Radio.

Fostering innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration

The American Association of School Librarians website has listed the 25 best websites for teaching and learning.

The topics include:

• Organizing and Managing
• Content Collaboration
• Curriculum Sharing
• Media Sharing
• Virtual Environments
• Social Networking and Communication

I think this is an interesting list of topics and suggest you check it out and judge for yourself. Hopefully you will find useful information.

Thank you Shalimar Poulin, Gardiner Area High School art teacher, for passing this on to me. You can access it by clicking here.

Nana Yaw Kwakye

I spoke to Nana recently and he shared the offerings that Adinkra has for music and dance. They brings Elephant horns, Flutes, Balaphones, African Violins, Fontomfrom Drums and other instruments to share authentic culture in Maine schools.
ADINKRA’s music is a qualitatively new system of making African music that utilizes characteristics from diverse indigenous society on the continent. The result is unlike the music of any particular African society, but contains elements identifiable within individual musical cultures in Africa.  It is with the system that ADINKRA explores fundamentally new directions in African music composition.

The instrumentation of the ensemble comprises two atenteben (seven holed vertical bamboo flutes); two gyile (anhemitonic pentatonic xylophones); a set of atsimevu drums (comprising one master drum and four supporting drums); a set of fontomfrom drums (comprising two master drums and five supporting drums); four djembe palm drums; it also includes four highly spirited dancers who are also singers that will electrify, excite and thrill students during this tour. “Music is the universal message and our first love,” says Nana Yaw Kwakye. “It is our desire to share our culture and heritage as well as share its timely message of unity…nothing unifies people like music and dance.”

You can learn more by visiting their website at or by contacting Nana at 248-747-2141 or nkwakye2@hotmail. You can visit their website by clicking here. See more in the video below.